The summer heat has officially landed in New York, and Hoda Kotb is soaking up the sun, and time with her family.
The Today Show co-anchor recently got to escape her usual spot at NBC studios for a little getaway with her daughters and mom, and though summer has only just started, she already left with what she says is her favorite photo of the season.
The longtime broadcast journalist has two daughters, Haley Joy, six, and Hope Catherine, three, who she adopted with her ex-fiancé Joel Schiffman. The two were together from 2013 until 2022, but continue to co-parent as friends.
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Hoda took to Instagram over the weekend to share her favorite summer snapshot yet, an adorable photo of her daughters with their grandmother, Hoda's mom Sameha "Sami" Kotb, enjoying a hot and sunny beach day.
The photo showcases the Kotb family's impressive beach set up outside what appears to be their Long Island home, featuring colorful umbrellas, wooden chairs, goggles, and plenty of beach toys for the girls.
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In the family portrait, Hope and Haley look ready to hit the water clad in matching pink floral sun shirts, blue bloomers, and pink hats, as they take a small bodyboard to the edge of the water, ready to ride some waves.
"My fav pix of summer," Hoda wrote, adding: "My girls and my mom," next to a string of red heart emojis.
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And while her girls' matching beach looks certainly had fans gushing over them, it was her mom's ear-to-ear smile that really stole the show.
© Instagram"Beyond," wrote Deborah Roberts, Hoda's co-star Al Roker's wife, herself a prominent news anchor, as others added: "Your mom has the same contagious smile you do," and: "Priceless!!!! God Bless your beautiful Mom and your adorable girls!!! Pure joy!!" as well as: "Awww… it's obvious where you get your lovely smile from!" plus another fan also wrote: "Your mom and your girls have that same beautiful, infectious smile!"
Hoda, who first became a mom in 2017, has always shared glimpses of motherhood and has always been candid about the feelings that came with becoming a mom later in life, when she was 52. During a recent appearance on former RHONY star Bethenny Frankel's podcast, Just B with Bethenny Frankel, she recalled when she first learned that her first daughter would be home soon.
"I remember never saying out loud that I wanted kids, never, because it was too late," she first admitted, adding: "For girls that it's too late for, you don't say it because if you say it, you're expressing something that you're never going to get."
© InstagramShe then recalled: "I filled out all the paperwork and did all the stuff that you do, and they're like, 'Okay, maybe a year, maybe six months, maybe five years, bye,'" before going into detail about the moment she finally got the good news of Haley's adoption.
© Instagram"I was sitting there, and I was doing some phone call with some nutritionist about something and babbling on and on. My phone beeped, and I looked at it, and it said Ashley, and Ashley was the lady from my adoption agency, and she [had] said, 'If I ever text you, you need to call me back immediately.
I saw her name, I hung up the phone, I took a yellow pad out, and I wrote, '11:55. This is the moment everything changes.' I knew it. And I took a deep breath and dialed the number, and I said, 'Ashley?' and she said two words to me. She said, 'She's here,'" she said, before concluding with: "I don't know what birth feels like, and I bet it was amazing, but this was really close.
