Hoda Kotb has a lot to be thankful for this festive season and she knows it! The Today anchor was full of joy in an Instagram post she shared with fans on Thursday as she gave them an update on her family.
Alongside a snapshot with daughters, Haley Joy, six, and Hope Catherine, four, and Hoda's friend, Jennifer Miller, she wrote: "How did I get so lucky? There is a poem that says — there are some hands you shake …and some hands you hold — I have been holding onto jen miller’s hand for more than 15 years. Happy birthday my friend. Lucky me @jennifermillerjewelry."
Jennifer commented: "You girls are the gift that keeps giving. Love you to the moon & back xo."
This sparked an influx of kind messages from fans who wrote: "Love all of those faces," and, "You are a great person Hoda you deserve to be lucky and these two girls look so happy …Merry Christmas to you and your family."
Hoda is excited to spend Christmas with her loved ones. It's been almost two years since she and her ex-fiance, Joel Schiffman, decided to call time on their romance.
They continue to co-parent their children together and last year, Hoda spoke to HELLO! about how their daughters feel about celebrating twice over with their mom and dad.
At the time, she detailed her plans and said: "My mom and sister and the rest of the family are coming, so we will divide."
She then added: "We will spend some time together and then Joel will spend some time just with the girls. They're gonna be super happy to get two Christmases. They'll be like 'What? What is this?' But we have a really nice situation set up."
She adores spending Christmas in New York and said there's no place she'd rather be at this time of the year.
"I mean Christmas in New York City - no shade to any other city - but Christmas here is spectacular," she added. "You can't get this feeling anywhere else." At the time of Hoda and Joel's breakup, she opened up to her Hoda & Jenna co-host, Jenna Bush Hager, to reveal what had happened.
"Joel and I have had a lot of prayerful and really meaningful conversations over the holidays, and we decided that we're better as friends and parents than we are as an engaged couple," she said on-air in January 2022.
"We decided that we are going to start this new year and begin it kind of on our new path as loving parents to our adorable, delightful children, and as friends."
The pair adopted their children together, and Hoda previously applauded Joel for encouraging her to become a mom.
Detailing how she didn't sleep for weeks as she summoned the courage to raise the conversation of adoption with Joel and give him a week to think about it, she told People.
"There was like a second there, I was like, 'This is the end of a relationship or the beginning of a family.' "My heart was pounding and he just looked at me and he said, 'I don't need a week.' At that moment, I fell on his chest and was sobbing."
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