Meet the Parents: Gil and Kelly Jo Bates

[GeeGolly]

Lol. A Fundy mother's nightmare.

[GeeGolly]

Seems to have been an active Bates summer thus far.

KJ is wearing a boot. Apparently a pickleball injury. Zack has a broken thumb and one of the grandkids has an arm in a cast.

 

[GeeGolly]

Anyone else think KJ may be using Ozempic?

[floridamom]

Is there a photo of her recently? If so, can it be posted here? Thank you.

[ginger90]

4 minutes ago, floridamom said:

Is there a photo of her recently? If so, can it be posted here? Thank you.

These are the most recent that I’ve seen.

The first one is a screenshot from a video.

[BitterApple]

2 hours ago, GeeGolly said:

Anyone else think KJ may be using Ozempic?

I think so. She dropped a ton of weight out of nowhere after years of struggling to stick to a diet. 

[GeeGolly]

[Absolom]

Wow, she is getting markedly thinner.

[ranchgirl]

It wouldn't surprise me if she is.  But didn't she also have some surgery not too long ago, a throat issue maybe?  Perhaps that helped too.  

[BetyBee]

On 7/24/2024 at 9:14 AM, GeeGolly said:

My first thought was that Kelly is losing weight to try to hold onto her man and @GeeGolly posted the perfect picture!

[floridamom]

By Kelly's own admission, she drinks a ton of sweet tea every day, etc. Perhaps the Ozempic is needed for diabetes or near risk for it if, indeed she is taking it. Yes, she did drop a ton of weight. Better for her health overall.

[Absolom]

Do you think it's possible she dropped the sugar sweetened tea?  That would seem to be her first step toward a healthier life..

[BitterApple]

53 minutes ago, Absolom said:

Do you think it's possible she dropped the sugar sweetened tea?  That would seem to be her first step toward a healthier life..

 I think 30+ years of bad diet and pregnancies caused a ton of health issues for Kelly in middle age. The Ozempic may have been medically necessary if she was diabetic, and she may have overhauled her eating habits because she had no choice. It seems unlikely a menopausal woman with Kelly's body type could shed that much weight so fast off diet alone, which is why I think she had some help. FWIW, I don't say this in a judge-y way, I'm just guessing the most likely scenario. 

Edited July 26 by BitterApple

[3 is enough]

I wonder if they finally have some sort of medical insurance. Those GLP-1 drugs are not cheap. And they have lots of side effects. 
My husband’s endocrinologist recently wrote him a prescription for another brand of GLP-1 for his type 2 diabetes. He has been trying it for almost 3 months and he has to stop. His appetite has decreased but he has tons of digestive issues and he has to get up in the middle of the night to eat because his blood sugar plummets. Not for him. I’m sure he’s not the only one with issues. 

[zenme]

I had the very same thought.  I have insurance, but the cost of some of those medicines, like Ozempic, Jardiance, mounjaro, and wegovy, are crazy expensive. I’m diabetic. I can’t see Kelly paying that. Maybe she is on a food plan, and got off sugary drinks like sweet tea and soda. 

[3 is enough]

16 minutes ago, zenme said:

I had the very same thought.  I have insurance, but the cost of some of those medicines, like Ozempic, Jardiance, mounjaro, and wegovy, are crazy expensive. I’m diabetic. I can’t see Kelly paying that. Maybe she is on a food plan, and got off sugary drinks like sweet tea and soda. 

Honestly dropping sugary drinks really helps. About 15 years ago I stopped drinking sodas, sweetened iced tea and juice. I dropped 15 lbs in a short amount of time.

[Tdoc72]

She was always carrying around a Sonic cup w/something in it. I remember one time they went on a car trip and she had gotten 2-3 from the drive thru for herself. 

[zenme]

20 hours ago, 3 is enough said:

Honestly dropping sugary drinks really helps. About 15 years ago I stopped drinking sodas, sweetened iced tea and juice. I dropped 15 lbs in a short amount of time.

Same here. Just with the switch from regular to diet soda I dropped 10.  It looks like maybe she’s eating better and maybe walking or something. Maybe she’s gone keto! I’m really beginning to see the resemblance between her and Tori. 
Hopefully Gil can get on board. 

[GeeGolly]

I can see KJ paying for Ozempic. She did LASIK before one kid got married. I can't remember which one.

But I also wonder if she has Barrett's disease. I'm thinking Ozempic might make it worse if she has any of the side effects. 

[ginger90]

Quite the birthday post to Lawson:

One of the pictures:

[andromeda331]

7 hours ago, ginger90 said:

Quite the birthday post to Lawson:

One of the pictures:

What Lawson is she talking about? Wise? Yeah, right. A thinker? No. A planner? A Studier? Who is that?

The only one that was correct was life of the party. 

[GeeGolly]

Can we assume Willy didn't arrive on Lawson's birthday?

[Salacious Kitty]

7 hours ago, GeeGolly said:

Can we assume Willy didn't arrive on Lawson's birthday?

I think he was born last weekend. Gil and Kelly weren't at the cash and carry. And Tiff may have slipped up in an Insta comment regarding Erin's reaction to the name William. 

Edited July 28 by Salacious Kitty

[GeeGolly]

2 hours ago, Salacious Kitty said:

I think he was born last weekend. Gil and Kelly weren't at the cash and carry. And Riff may have slipped up in an Insta comment regarding Erin's reaction to the name William. 

Who is Riff? And what was the comment?

[Salacious Kitty]

5 minutes ago, GeeGolly said:

Who is Riff? And what was the comment?

Tiff, sorry for the typo. 

She said something about their Williams being born. 

[ginger90]

50 minutes ago, GeeGolly said:

 what was the comment?

This was a reply by Tiffany to a comment.

 

“Yes! William is also Erin's son's name, but it's also Lawson's legal name too! Before we both had our William's we talked about it and were so excited to name our babies! Erin is one of my closest sister in laws and we are so excited”

Edited July 28 by ginger90

[Salacious Kitty]

Thanks for digging that up. She really blew it, again. 

[GeeGolly]

Almost didn't recognize KJ.

[BitterApple]

Kelly had the same top on when she visited baby William, which got me thinking: did Josie not pop in to see Lawson? All of her recent posts have been from the game and her AirBnB. Neither she nor Lawson/Tiffany posted any pictures, so I'm guessing no.

This makes me feel bad for Tiffany yet again. She's a new mom who had a rough postpartum recovery. It would've been awfully nice of Josie and Lydia to invite her over to their rental house so she could enjoy the pool and have some girl time. In fairness maybe they did and there will be a flurry of pictures today, but everyone always seems to leave Tiffany out. 

[Tdoc72]

Josie posted today about meeting William. She posted a handful of pics. 

[andromeda331]

11 hours ago, GeeGolly said:

Almost didn't recognize KJ.

I'm sure the granddaugher she's holding didn't either.

[ranchgirl]

Carlin, Josie and Katie (along with baby Harvey!) took Kelly Jo to New Hampshire for her 58th birthday.  I'm curious if they asked the other sisters if they wanted to chip in and go and they declined or if they just planned it.  

[BitterApple]

4 hours ago, ranchgirl said:

Carlin, Josie and Katie (along with baby Harvey!) took Kelly Jo to New Hampshire for her 58th birthday.  I'm curious if they asked the other sisters if they wanted to chip in and go and they declined or if they just planned it.  

My guess is they just planned it. If you look at their recent social media, it's 95% Josie, Katie and Carlin preening for the camera and promoting sponsored products, so the trip really wasn't about Kelly to begin with. 

Edited October 27 by BitterApple

[GeeGolly]

2 hours ago, BitterApple said:

My guess is they just planned it. If you look at their recent social media, it's 95% Josie, Katie and Carlin preening for the camera and promoting sponsored products, so the trip really wasn't about Kelly to begin with. 

Yup. The 3 influencers drumming up attention for their busy season. No different than Walmart.

[AstridM]

4 hours ago, BitterApple said:

My guess is they just planned it. If you look at their recent social media, it's 95% Josie, Katie and Carlin preening for the camera and promoting sponsored products, so the trip really wasn't about Kelly to begin with. 

They’re horrible people. Ugh. 

[ginger90]

15 hours ago, BitterApple said:

My guess is they just planned it. If you look at their recent social media, it's 95% Josie, Katie and Carlin preening for the camera and promoting sponsored products, so the trip really wasn't about Kelly to begin with. 

I agree, it was a bunch of shilling videos. “My shoes are from X, pants from Y, belt is from Z, etc. One big commercial.

[ranchgirl]

16 hours ago, BitterApple said:

My guess is they just planned it. If you look at their recent social media, it's 95% Josie, Katie and Carlin preening for the camera and promoting sponsored products, so the trip really wasn't about Kelly to begin with. 

You are so right.  One big infomercial. 

Wouldn't it have been nice if they had included Michael so she could have joined the fun and not been left behind to watch kids like she always is.  This time she was just left behind because she didn't fit their parameters.  (And maybe had to watch Josie's kids some.)  

[BitterApple]

4 hours ago, ranchgirl said:

You are so right.  One big infomercial. 

Wouldn't it have been nice if they had included Michael so she could have joined the fun and not been left behind to watch kids like she always is.  This time she was just left behind because she didn't fit their parameters.  (And maybe had to watch Josie's kids some.)  

I have no doubts Michael got stuck with Josie's kids. Evan and Travis posted reels of them taking Layla, Zade and Hailey to church and going to a trunk-or-treating event afterwards, but it's been crickets on Kelton's end. Given that Josie loves flexing her perfect life, she wouldn't have missed an opportunity to post Super Dad on his own with their brood. 

[Notabug]

1 hour ago, BitterApple said:

I have no doubts Michael got stuck with Josie's kids. Evan and Travis posted reels of them taking Layla, Zade and Hailey to church and going to a trunk-or-treating event afterwards, but it's been crickets on Kelton's end. Given that Josie loves flexing her perfect life, she wouldn't have missed an opportunity to post Super Dad on his own with their brood. 

Kelton couldn't watch his own kids without help back when there were only a couple of them.  I am sure that enlisting Michael to do the heavy lifting with the kids was required for Josie to get his permission to leave for the weekend.

[YupItsMe]

On 10/28/2024 at 7:46 AM, ginger90 said:

I agree, it was a bunch of shilling videos. “My shoes are from X, pants from Y, belt is from Z, etc. One big commercial.

But nothing was from BSB. 

[RebeccatheWriter]

On 10/29/2024 at 9:22 AM, YupItsMe said:

But nothing was from BSB. 

I think one pair of Carlin's earrings came from Christian Temu/BSB

[GeeGolly]

Not to defend Kelton, but he is the one with a job.

[cereality]

Yes Kelton has a job and the other 2 sons in law don't but to be fair - they were away on a Sat/Sunday. Carlin was posting videos of Evan taking the kids to church, asking what fast food they wanted for lunch after, asking if they'd watch football with him. I don't think they returned until Monday night/Tuesday so yeah I could see using Michael on the weekdays as she provides their regular childcare, but no reason Kelton couldn't have watched his kids for the weekend. But let's be real. It isn't coincidental that Josie used to make SUCH a big deal flattering Kelton and gushing about he was such a great dad bc he'd watch kid #1 when she used to work weddings on Saturdays. It's like she had to keep him flattered into watching his own kid. At that time he sucked it up and did it bc his business wasn't established yet and they needed the money. Then as his biz grew and kid #2 came along, very quickly watching his own kids was beneath him and we suddenly saw Josie rarely working weddings and when she did it would be Thursday/Friday weddings - i.e. she could use Michael for regular weekday childcare and not bother Lord Kelton. And then with kid #3 - and as she's very likely been pushed out of the wedding hair biz by her own employees bc they are the ones on the ground meeting the bridesmaids and booking their upcoming weddings for themselves not for Josie's biz - suddenly Josie announces she's out of the wedding biz and only selling plastic crap online.

The sister trip came across as a very desperate influencer trip. I mean up until a few months ago, they were all sooooo successful, they'd never overlap social media, they had their own "businesses" blah blah. And now as I'm willing to bet sales for all their crap are down significantly - as ppl just don't have the money to spare as cost of living remains high - now suddenly they're collaborating. I mean Josie could never be bothered to even go to the BSB sales just to stop by. Now she's selling her hair noodles there. All 3 of them were using the hair noodles on the dumb NH trip gushing about how great they are. Josie was promoting BSB's cheap tacky clothing. Wonder if a bit of financial panic has set in. Yeah Trav comes from money and Kelton has a legit biz, but honestly these girls have all gotten used to their extras and they know they aren't going on 4 vacations/yr if they don't come up with some money beyond their husbands' incomes. And Carlin has foolishly tied her and her husband's entire livelihood to selling junk on social media.

[BitterApple]

Oh they're most definitely desperate. Kelly looked like she was being held hostage in their fit check and pool noodle videos. Josie even had the nerve to say her curler works better than the Dyson (sure, Jan), so yeah, she's gaslighting like the rent's due. 

Travis is fishing for a new car, so poor, postpartum Katie had to haul her butt to NH to keep the grift going. She looked tired and miserable the whole time, but hey, at least she got a vlog out of it. 

If Kelly wasn't such a crap mother, I might have felt badly for her. It was so obvious the vacation had nothing to do with celebrating her or her birthday, it was just an excuse for her daughters to shill in an autumn setting. 

[Absolom]

2 hours ago, cereality said:

Yes Kelton has a job and the other 2 sons in law don't but to be fair - they were away on a Sat/Sunday.

Kelton runs a business and plenty of plumbing emergencies happen on the weekend.  If he wants to keep his customers, he's going to have to be available to get someone out to the job or go himself to get people functional if possible until Monday.  Hopefully he kept the children a good portion of that time.   He has shown himself not expecting to do a lot of solo childcare though.

[cereality]

1 hour ago, Absolom said:

Kelton runs a business and plenty of plumbing emergencies happen on the weekend.  If he wants to keep his customers, he's going to have to be available to get someone out to the job or go himself to get people functional if possible until Monday.  Hopefully he kept the children a good portion of that time.   He has shown himself not expecting to do a lot of solo childcare though.

Yes but Kelton's biz is pretty big now. They usually post a picture of their work Christmas party every year and it's easily 15-20 guys. Plus Kelton has said that now he mostly manages the business and even with that seems like he's successful enough that he has delegated responsibility to others - like he hired someone to head up marketing, someone else for finance, plus he has Bobby. So yeah I don't think he's handling last minute calls himself. He likely has a call schedule where two guys are on every weekend. Maybe he puts himself on the call schedule occasionally to show that he isn't just a suit (he has said that's important to him) but I highly doubt that's being the owner he couldn't just have been like nah not this weekend, I'm solo parenting.

2 hours ago, BitterApple said:

Oh they're most definitely desperate. Kelly looked like she was being held hostage in their fit check and pool noodle videos. Josie even had the nerve to say her curler works better than the Dyson (sure, Jan), so yeah, she's gaslighting like the rent's due. 

Travis is fishing for a new car, so poor, postpartum Katie had to haul her butt to NH to keep the grift going. She looked tired and miserable the whole time, but hey, at least she got a vlog out of it. 

If Kelly wasn't such a crap mother, I might have felt badly for her. It was so obvious the vacation had nothing to do with celebrating her or her birthday, it was just an excuse for her daughters to shill in an autumn setting. 

When did Katie push out this kid? Has it even been a month? Bc who on earth hauls their one month old on flights thru LaGuardia or Boston Logan (I'm assuming - that's typically how you get to New England) which are massively crowded airports for something this . . . vapid?! I know I know covid is fake; RSV whatever. And then they had him on train rides and in restaurants there and Carlin was gushing about how some nice lady on the train gave her Advil bc her neck hurt from the flight - so yep I'm sure they had strangers cooing all over the baby. And uh they were doing exactly nothing in NH. It looks like they sat in the house, modeled clothes, took pics, went to a few meals, and went on a train ride - WTF Carlin don't take pills from strangers, stop by CVS!?

You could tell the trip had nothing to do with Kelly bc they went to NH AFTER PEAK?! Who does that?? I mean New England peak that far north is not gonna be in late Oct. And people who are going for actual fall season keep an eye on these things. If the point was to go on her actual bday but still get peak season, you go further south. I mean I'm in Va. and we're peaking now so of course New England is done. But clearly it was a hastily thrown together IG trip so whatever. But yeah the foliage from that train ride looked pretty pathetic - not a whole lot left on the trees/in the forests.

Kelly at one point DID try to seek out the attention. Gushing about how she never thought she'd get to do this and it's soooo much money. Just looked it up and while I don't know which exact route they chose, for Conway Railway - the ticket prices range from $68 to $198 at their most expensive. Like bitch get a grip, you guys go to outlet malls, Sbux, and random budget airline flights to Fla. which you don't board until you buy out a convenience store and drop $198. Like don't act like you never get to spend on yourself.

It's interesting to me that Josie is feeling the pressure to keep her dumb IG biz going. I mean I get why Katie and Carlin feel it - their men do exactly nothing. But Kelton earns more than a good living; they bought land; are looking to build a house. Though I do think Kelton being a responsible adult is frugal - not in a bad way, but in a responsible long term planning way.

He's the one who is always saying cooking at home saves them so much money; he bought a used SUV rather than running out and buying the 100k vehicles all her siblings get. They seem to treat going out to get coffee as a treat like on weekends. Josie is always gushing about her coffee at home being so great, when in reality she's probably been convinced by budget conscious Kelton that a $6 Sbux every time she leaves the home isn't a good value, even if her siblings do it. So I'm guessing Josie is thinking that if her income dwindles and she becomes a full time SAHM - which lets be real Kelton prob wants - all the extra perks like non stop shopping or 4 vacations a year are gone. She'll be buying clothes at Kohls only when she needs them and they'll take a normal 1-2 vacations per yr. And given the comparison in this family, I'm sure she'll feel totally left behind as Carlin and Katie and Whit spend and vacation.

[65mickey]

I doubt seriously that the Balkas are dependent on Josie's income for their life style. If you look at Keltons business Tennessee Standard Plumbing it is pretty impressive.  His company has a 401 k plan with a company match, 3 weeks PTO, 7 paid holidays, health insurance, and inservice training. it's no rinky dink company. I think of all the married couples they are probably the most financially secure. They are not dependent on social media or family money to have the life style that they want. 

[lookeyloo]

Could it be that she is responsible for her extras outside the family budget.  Example. If you want xyz then use "your" money. 

[ozziemom]

1 hour ago, lookeyloo said:

Could it be that she is responsible for her extras outside the family budget.  Example. If you want xyz then use "your" money. 

I think this is the reason Josie works now. Plus it’s nice to have all these “fans” praising and complimenting you. Most of the middle Bateses were deprived of both attention and nice, new things for a lot of their childhood so they are making up for it now.