Yarrow is the oldest of five children. He has a sister and three brothers. When his parents divorced his family was left with very little money and relied solely on money brought in from his mother's, Caryn Brady, work in the Catholic Church as a Youth Group Director and some help here and there from his extended family. Yarrow decided that he wanted to go into animation. He worked for hours making his drawings perfect. By the time he applied for college, he was more than ready to keep up with the work load, but was initially rejected from the college of his choice (CalArts) purely through of lack of space for enrollments. However, he did not wish to admit defeat. He signed up for summer school classes at the school. He floored his teacher when he managed the best animation in the class. The teacher could not believe that it was his first time at animating. He soon got the Dean of Administrations to accept him. Although Yarrow was not quite sure how he was going to pay for college, he accepted the position and set off to tell his family the great news. Yarrow never finished college because in his 3rd year, he worked on "Cats Don't Dance," for Turner Feature Animation, and then "Iron Giant," and "Quest for Camelot" for Warner Bros. Feature Animation.

During this period, he worked with his friend from college, Carrie Buell. They eventually decided to open their own animation company called YCB animation. They have worked on various projects together such as the opening credits to Dilbert (1999). On October 15, 2003, they were married in Hawaii. Since then, they continue to work for other companies, hoping to make enough money to get their company up and running with a few movies and Christmas specials. In 2004, Yarrow accepted the job as a production designer for Meraklı Maymun (2006).