Al Roker's birthday isn't for another eight months, but Hoda Kotb's daughter Haley Joy is getting ahead of the game!
On Monday's episode of the Today show, Kotb shared the adorable story of how her 3½-year-old went all out in creating the perfect celebratory confection for Roker — only for the mother of two to then learn than it wasn't his birthday after all.
"What's happening here?" Kotb, 56, asks Haley in a video shared on the show. Replies the little girl, "I'm making you a cake, Al Roker. Love you! Bye!"
After confirming that the cake is a chocolate-flavored one, Haley tells her mom that the baking project is underway "because it's Al Roker's birthday."
Kotb admitted on Monday's broadcast that she has been "laughing all weekend" over the mix-up, saying she got the wrong information from a Today show newsletter that said it was Roker's birthday. (The weatherperson's big day is, in fact, in August.)
"I got Haley, we baked a cake, we put on hats, we did a Zoom birthday," she recalls. "And Roker's face — I laughed 'cause you looked at us when we were doing the Zoom like, 'What are you talking about?!' "
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Roker told his co-host that he and wife Deborah Roberts were driving upstate at the time when Kotb, Haley and Kotb's 20-month-old daughter Hope Catherine called him via Zoom to wish him many happy returns.
And while Kotb says Roberts' "face was the best" in that she was "totally dead-eyed," Roker praised Haley's "spectacular" cake and agreed with Savannah Guthrie's note of, "It's the thought that counts."
"I didn't want to burst the kid's bubble, 'cause she did such a lovely [job]," he says, going on to joke, "So now I'm 67!"
"Kids like half-birthdays, so maybe it was [for] your half-birthday," Sheinelle Jones tells Roker. "Kudos to you for playing along!"
It has been quite the season of celebration for Kotb, who even found a covert way to send her daughter a sweet message during the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade broadcast last month.
While co-hosting the 94th annual holiday parade coverage on NBC with Guthrie, 48, the longtime television journalist briefly tugged on her ear at one point — a "secret signal" she later revealed was intended for her older child. (Kotb shares Haley and Hope with fiancé Joel Schiffman.)
"Told Haley I would give her a secret signal from parade to say i love you! tug on my ear a la @carolburnett," the mom of two wrote on Instagram, adding that "Hopey slept thru parade! Naptime!"
Kotb shared a video that was captured of Haley reacting to the moment on TV, with the little girl adorably giggling at her mom's signal as Schiffman, 62, gave her a kiss on the cheek.
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