Kimberly Schlapman's heart is full this holiday season.
The Little Big Town member took part in the 24th Annual A Home For The Holiday At The Grove event in Los Angeles, which celebrated families whose lives have been changed through adoption. The festive evening had her reflecting on her own experience as an adoptive parent to her 5-year-old daughter Dolly Grace with husband Steve Schlapman.
"I was just thinking about the love for my adopted child. It is identical to the love I have for my biological child. There is no difference," the 53-year-old told E! News on Nov. 20. "The love came instantly, as soon as we laid our eyes on her. My husband and I, we fell immediately in love with her."
Kimberly continued, "That's really all these children need, the children who need foster care and adoption, they just need love! A family who wants them and cares for them and makes them their own, that's all they need. There's so many out there."
The couple are also parents to daughter Daisy Pearl, 15. Kimberly previously discussed her struggle to have a second child, saying it was Daisy who really pushed for a sibling.
"We kept trying, but then when Daisy was 4, she started begging for a sibling, 'Please, please. I want a baby brother or a baby sister,'" she recalled to People in 2021. "We started trying much harder at that point. We did all the medical things, the artificial insemination at first, and then in vitro fertilization as we got more serious."
The Grammy winner shared, "We lost the first in vitro. We lost the second one. And then my husband and I just one day looked at each other and said, maybe God's telling us it's time to adopt."
In January 2017, the couple announced they had adopted Dolly into their family after getting a text about the baby girl during the holidays. Three years later, Kimberly penned her debut children's book A Dolly For Christmas—a story about how her elder daughter wanted a sibling so bad that she wrote a letter to Santa.
"She is our absolute Christmas miracle," Kimberly told People in 2020. "I think that faith is what got us through all the disappointments—and our love, our huge family bond and the love we have for each other."
This Christmas, Kimberly is looking forward to continuing holiday traditions with her family, including a fun-filled trip to Tennessee.
"We always end our year in East Tennessee in a place called Blackberry Farms. We take our band and crew and kids and families and do all the Christmas stuff," she told E! News. "The decorating of cookies, we take cooking classes and we ride horses and just all the really fun stuff. We eat great food and we don't have to cook it!"
The "Girl Crush" singer added, "So that's the best gift—you don't have to clean it up or cook it!
The 24th Annual A Home For The Holiday At The Grove, hosted by Gloria Estefan, airs Dec. 23 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on the CBS Television Network and will also be available to stream live and on-demand on Paramount+.
— Reporting by Amanda Champagne