Christmas News 2006


Christiaan loves his job at church and the challenges it brings. This past year he had to replace a lot of his great staff members, so things were very busy for a while. But he has hired and is expecting a few great new staff members at Cornerstone. Any spare time he fills with doing a lot of reading, volunteering at Mariana's school, watching television, playing with the kids or tinkering with computers. He really enjoys leading the Bible Study we have here in Castro Valley.
One of the highlights of his day is praying with Mariana in the car on the way to school. She has such a sweet heart and prays the most... interesting prayers. You should ask him about those sometime.

Kristina continues to live a busy life! Her biggest joys are being Christiaan's wife and Mariana and Jack's mom. She stays very busy taking the kids to and and from school, helping them with homework and house projects, and having fun. She still teaches piano students three days a week and loves it! She continues to be involved with music and leading worship with the women at church, also a joy. It is so amazing to be used by God, doing the things you love!

Mariana just turned 7 on December 4! She is in first grade this year at Valley Christian Elementary School, and is doing excellent. Learning to read has been a thrill and she also especially enjoys math. She continues to love doing all kinds of arts and crafts and is learning how to clean up after herself (not as fun!). Mariana got her first “real” Bible for her birthday and is busy reading Luke 2 every night (they are memorizing it in her class). She loves going to church and she loves Jesus. Mariana is such a joy and it is a privilege to watch her grow into the girl that God intended her to be! Two classic "close, but not quite" sayings by Mariana are: "Maebe (our dog), get a lot of this!" as she showed off her bicycle skills, and, "Mister Steve, you're a piece of wall!" Funny.

Jack turned 5 in August and you know what that means: he gets to chew gum, a major milestone in the lives of VandenHeuvel kids! Last spring he finished at Kids' Kingdom Preschool and even prayed at the graduation ceremony! This fall he started at Redwood Forest Preschool in the Pre-Kindergarten class. He has (finally) decided that he is right-handed, though he eats with his left hand, and this has caused quite a change in his seat work! Now he goes around the house coping anything he can find, including labels on wipes containers, cereal boxes, etc. It's so exciting to watch. Jack continues to crack us up with his sense of humor and wit. He is getting so big and is a real kid now. One way we know he's getting ready for Kindergarten is that he has started to spell everything, and he wants to know how to spell words. Not only will he come up to us to ask "What does UQRDT spell?" But he also asked Christiaan the other day about one of his favorite movies: "Papa, how do you spell ET?" When Christiaan told him he got so mad! He was finally told to drop the question with the promise that it'll all become clear to him in Kindergarten.

Family Highlights:

- two camping trips – one with family, one with friends
- a visit from Opa in October!

We pray that this season of Christmas would bring you closer to the truth and love of Jesus, our Savior!
He is and has been so faithful to us this past year, sustaining us through easy and difficult times. He provides for us in unexpected ways, and lavishes His love on us. We continue to seek His will and purpose for our family as we desire and hope for another child, maybe even in 2007!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

Love,

Christiaan, Kristina, Mariana and Jack

Mariana's Birthday

We started her birthday on her birthday eve. She enjoyed opening presents from Opa and Oma, Ome Paul and Tante Jacoline. They sent a box FULL of presents! Then she was all ready to talk to them first thing in the morning.

Reading the card

All the loot!

Talking with Oma

Mariana and her 1st grade class at Valley Christian. We celebrated the December birthdays - Mariana's and Tyler Doyle's.



Later, we had her birthday dinner with Grandpa and Grandma, Christina (our neighbor), and Uncle James and Auntie Rosalyn. We had chicken soup - Mariana's request - and bread, with butter, of course (Mar REALLY enjoys the butter -- the bread is just the vehicle to be able to eat the butter!)






New clothes from mom and dad and an amazing craft kit from Grandpa and Grandma - good for hours of crafting!












Jack was the big gift helper. Feel the sibling love!










So, our girl is officially seven years old! We can hardly believe. We are so proud of her and so thankful that she is our daughter.

Mariana's Beach Party!

Mariana's birthday is in December - every year. This year she really wanted a beach party. So, on December 8th, with houses aglow with Christmas lights and decorations, and with rain pouring down, we turned our house into a beach paradise! We had six girls - some from school, some from church, and had a great time!







HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MARIANA!!!













The girls dressed up with leis and flower barrettes, made flower pens, ate pizza and fruit kabobs, and had makeovers! What fun! Rachel, Jamie, and Christina (Rachel's friend) did the girls' faces and toenails!

THANKSGIVING

After Disneyland, the Bakker clan (minus Karen and family) shared a wonderful day together. We had our traditional feast, complete with Grandma's stuffing, turkey, mashed potatoes, etc. Crystal set a beautiful table!

The most special part of the day was going around the table and sharing the things we were thankful for. Crystal had kept our thankfulness cards from last year, and it was so cool to read things from a year ago, and to think about God's goodness to us. It's exciting that the kids are old enough now to participate, and such a blessing to hear them share the things they are thankful for. Jordan and Erin had us all crying. A year ago they were struggling with infertility and their deep desire for a baby. And this year, they have a baby girl due in January!!! God answered their prayer! He is so good!

Mariana kept Owen happy in the swing. She's such a good big cousin!

Dog pile on Uncle Jordan!

Monkeying around!














Later in the evening, we celebrated Christmas together, since none of us will be together then. This, of course, meant presents!!














Andrew is so adorable! He said, carefully and slowly when he opened this gift from Grandma (it's Crayola marker), "It's...........Pens!!"









I thank God for my wonderful family. I praise Him for His provision. For Hope. For health. For salvation. For my kids. For my husband. For our church. For our friends. For His kindness and grace.

Disneyland!


Mom and Dad and all the VandenHeuvel's travelled down to Orange County Tuesday night for our exciting Thanksgiving weekend. We were so excited because we were all going to Disneyland together on Wednesday! It wasn't the entire Bakker clan since Karen and Alan and the kids couldn't be there - we sure missed them! The rest of us were together, though, and we had a wonderful day together. Everything was decorated for Christmas!
Pictured here are the VH's on the left side, then Kristina's brother, Dan (in red) and Crystal, with two of their three boys, Ethan (hugging Jack) and Andrew (Owen, the baby, stayed with Crystal's mom for the day). Kristina's youngest brother, Jordan, is proudly emphasizing Erin's round tummy - anticipating parenthood with baby Morgan (due in January). Then, Mom and Dad.




The VH's with Mickey!














Dan and Crystal, Ethan and Andrew























Auntie Kristina and Ethan on the huge ferris wheel at California Adventure. I can't tell who's protecting who here...I got a little green on that!















Of course, our adventure wouldn't have been complete without going on "It's a Small World".

Jack's Thanksgiving Feast

Jack and his classmates at Redwood Forest Preschool celebrated Thanksgiving together. They decorated the table with handprint turkeys and things they were thankful for. The moms all brought in parts of the turkey dinner.



Jack wasn't too excited about the stuffing and the corn. No one else seemed to mind! I did manage to get him to take at least one bite of everything.











Jack's buddies from school: Darius and Langston.

Busted!

Mariana is turning out to be quite the little speller! She never misses a word on her weekly spelling tests, and the other night, she proved that she's in a different level of child now.

We were having dinner as a family, and Christiaan and I were talking. As we talked, I ended up spelling the word, "b-l-a-c-k", and continued to talk on. About a minute later, as we had moved on in the conversation, and the kids were eating, Mariana chimed in, "Oh, I know what you were spelling -- BLACK!" She had been quietly figuring it out for that whole time. Christiaan and I looked at each other, so surprised, and he said, "I guess we won't be able to spell words anymore if we don't want the kids to know what we're talking about!!"

Candy Zone

This is one of the kids' favorite events of the year! They get to dress up, go to church for major carnival-type games and jumpy-houses, and, of course...CANDY!

Mariana was an angel -- so consistent with how she is all the time! Jack was Peter Pan.








Jack really got into the games -- golf and throwing the
ball through the holes were his favorites

We all dressed up for CandyZone, a huge party that our church throws each October 31st. Jack was Peter Pan, Mariana an angel (type-casting), Kristina dressed up like a cowgirl (her Hanford genes coming through) and Christiaan did a 1950's look (the reason fro the gum in his mouth).

We had a blast! 

Piatti's

Piatti's
Originally uploaded by ChristiaanV.

Dad and his salmon dinner

Kristina and Christiaan

Kristina and Christiaan
Originally uploaded by ChristiaanV.

Christiaan's dad and unle Jits took us out for a very nice dinner to Piatti's in Danville. It was a wonderful evening!

Target Games

Target Games
Originally uploaded by ChristiaanV.

We like to go for cheap (FREE!) entertainment!!

John Marius with John and Marius




Jack's name is John Marius, named for Grandpa John and Opa Marius. Jack had a great time playing "Go Fish" with both of them -- what a treat!

PUMPKIN CARVING

We had fun carving pumpkins with Opa and Ome Jits.

Jits and Kristina scooped out all the guts (picture didn't turn out).


Opa and Christiaan carved the pictures.












Jack and Mariana gladly took the credit...

PUMPKIN DAY!

We had a great plan for Saturday! We were going to go to Half Moon Bay to their big Pumpkin Patch Festival and spend the day there, watching a parade, going on some rides, eating...

When we got off the bridge into San Mateo, traffic STOPPED. Like a parking lot. After about 20 minutes of that, we decided to forget that and go back to Castro Valley and visit our more local pumpkin patch place at Rowell Ranch. The kids had fun going on rinky-dink rides, visiting the petting zoo, and Jack even rode a pony. We thought we'd then go to Starbucks, go to Target, and have a late lunch at In-n-Out.

Then, about a mile from the pumpkin patch, we got a flat tire!! Ugh! We had a jack and a spare, but no tire iron. So we called AAA, and a 20 minute wait turned into an HOUR and 20 minutes! With the six of us in the van waiting! Good bonding time! Finally, the spare tire was on, and we went home.