Mother of the Month - Andrea

1.) Tell me a little bit about yourself and your partner, how you met. How you decided to have kids, what are your hobbies, what you do in your free time, etc.

Kip and I met and got married in Chicago and spent our 1 year wedding anniversary moving to Seattle, where we've been since 2015. We enjoy traveling, hiking, and spending time with friends. Most of those hobbies have been derailed by the pandemic but we're still finding ways to connect with people.

2.) Parenting wisdoms... As you are navigating this journey, what advice have you found useful or have you gleaned as you are becoming parents?

I try to remind myself often that whatever parenting style or choice feels right can be supported by a quick google search. By that I mean go with your gut and if you need back-up, there's likely a book published or website dedicated to supporting whatever you do.

3.) Please feel free to include anything else you like that is interesting about you or your parenting philosophy. AKA books you read, or like whatever.

One of the things that Kip and I both really wanted to encourage in our girls is a love of reading. Specifically we have tried to find them children's books with various cultural backgrounds represented. This has meant spending some extra time scouring book shelves but the result is a diverse collection of children's books.

4.). If you want, please tell us why you decided to document this special time in your life and have professional family or maternity photographs, and if you want to, why you trusted me to take these special photos.

After our first daughter was born, my entire family came in to meet the baby and we had Jen photograph us all. Up until that morning, I questioned whether it would be worth it to drag 8 adults, 1 newborn, 2 young kids and a dog into the studio but the photo shoot ended up being so much fun and the pictures turned out amazing. Then 2 months later the pandemic hit and we wouldn't get to see any of those family members in person for over a year. The photos were an amazing way to remember the last time we were all together. When our second was born, we knew that we wanted to do another photo shoot and again had family present (this time just my parents).