DENVER — Some Colorado families are feeling complete this Christmas after adoptions officially brought their newest additions home for the holidays.
Denver7 caught up with the Kniss family who just finalized their last adoption.
"This year, I think more than a lot of years. I'm really looking forward to Christmas," Kelly Kniss, an adoptive mom, told Denver7.
She adopted her daughters Everly and Malkahm, 4, last year. They spent the days leading up to the holidays in the hospital, which Kelly said is a reality for many families adopting children with complex medical needs.
"I think the thing that I tell most people is that you shouldn't go into foster care with the sole purpose of adopting," Kelly said. "I think that you should go into foster care because you want to love children for the moment."
Kelly and her husband spent years fostering Colorado children looking for their forever homes.
Just weeks ago, Megan, 30, became the family's final adoption. She's been part of the family for years and has a child of her own now, but the Kniss' wanted to make it legal and official.
That makes Everly, Malkahm and Megan three of the 468 adoptions in the state between Nov. 1, 2024 and Nov. 1, 2025.
"All of these kids have been through a lot, and so when we do need homes in Colorado, and we need homes that really reflect what our kids are needing in these families," Colorado's Division of Child Welfare Placement Resources Administrator Toilynn Edwards said. "We definitely are seeing a trend of the need for actual adoption going down. And there's a couple of reasons for that, right?"
She said those include a decrease in kids entering foster care, and the ones that do enter, needing to stay longer for various reasons.
"Whether that be medical needs, whether that be some emotional or some mental health needs," Edwards said.
The Kniss family is the perfect example — from Everly who has half a heart and Malkahm whose little body has already overcome cancer.
They accept all the scary challenges.
"So I think adoption is just kind of one of those things that happens because you fall in love with the children in your foster care, the children who come to you for a day or a night and stay a lifetime," Kelly Kniss said. "The blessing is in the moment, not in the forever. But there is definitely something about when they do get to stay forever knowing that you have a lot of in the moments to come."
