Amanda Seyfried on 'Gorgeous' Parenting Moment with Husband Thomas Sadoski, What's 'Most Fun' About Parenthood

The actress teamed up with her her childhood best friends to create a "Make It Cute" line of playhouses, with help from her built-in focus group, daughter Nina, 6, and son Thomas, 2

Parenthood can often get a bad rap for being exhausting, messy and sticky, but Amanda Seyfried is doing her part to "make it cute."

The Emmy and Golden Globe award-winning actress has partnered with two of her oldest friends, Anne Hoehn and Maureen North, to create Make it Cute, a line of children's playhouses that are durable, sustainable and aesthetically pleasing.

"Our friendship has evolved since we were five," says Seyfried, 37, of the pals she's known since growing up in Allentown, Pennsylvania. "It's been 30 years and it's just grown and grown, and then we all had kids around the same time, so we became mothers together."

On one of their many pandemic Zoom calls, sipping wine and discussing the "chaos that grew exponentially with their kids and families," Seyfried, Hoehn and North began brainstorming ways that they could make their homes a calmer space.

"Anne was building these giant playhouses out of whatever big boxes would come to her house, and we were like, how do we build that? How do we build something like that for all of us, where we can store toys and give our kids that playhouse that they want?" Seyfried tells PEOPLE.

When the playhouses became a reality, Seyfried recruited her daughter Nina, 6, and son Thomas, 2, to test out the prototype.

"My kids love playing in it. They just want to go and explore and make their own space," the Mamma Mia! actress says. "Sometimes I'll look away and I'll come out in the living room and I'll be like, where are they? And they're both in the house ... and they're playing nicely."

For Seyfried, who is coming off a major awards season for her role in The Dropout, developing the Thelma & Louise musical and launching Make It Cute, she cherishes her time at home with her kids and keeps her work trips "quick, so quick."

But she still does find herself trying to explain the unusual nature of her work to her kids.

"My son is only two and a half, so I have no idea what his understanding is. When I was on the Today Show I was watching with him, and his reaction was sad!" she said, explaining that he associates her being on TV with being away from home. "He's like, 'Mama!' and I was like 'Hey, I am right here!' It doesn't make sense [to him], and it shouldn't."

Her daughter, however, is a "natural-born actor" and seems to understand more what her mom's job entails.

"She's starting to really appreciate that this is what I do for a living, and she understands it as much as any six-year-old can," Seyfried explains. "When I say ' I'm going to go do this, you'll see me on TV' she'll be like, 'Okay mama,' and she misses me, but when I come back, she's proud... She has this pride."

Seyfried says she senses that acting could be in her daughter's future as well: "She's not working, but I know in my bones that this is what she is. She's a performer. Will she do it as a career? Who knows?"

Related: Amanda Seyfried Says Daughter Has 'Stars in Her Eyes' When She Wins Awards: 'They're Shining'

The actress says she derives a lot of joy out of watching her children figure everything out as they go.

"The most fun thing about parenting right now is the puzzle of teaching them what the right thing is, but allowing them to come to the conclusion themselves," the actress says. "My six-year-old really understands a lot about consequences and wants to be kind. She has such goodness in her heart ... [with my son], when he seems to understand something, it feels like a giant win. Or when I see my daughter teach my son something, and I'm just sitting back and watching, it's just the best."

Related: Amanda Seyfried Shares Rare Photo of Son Thomas and Daughter Nina on a Pretend Picnic Together

What makes parenting even more enjoyable for Seyfried is doing it alongside her husband, Thomas Sadoski, with whom she says parenting is "yin and yang."

"Yesterday, I looked at my husband Tom and said 'God, that was good parenting. You stopped [the behavior] with your tone,' then I came in ... it was a gorgeous moment'," the actress tells PEOPLE.

And making the journey even sweeter is having friends like Hoehn and North to keep her grounded.

"I rely on my friends to make me feel like I'm not crazy. I knew from the jump that my marriage was not going to be everything to me. I know that you can't get everything from one person, and so it feels like I have these relationships with my friends, especially with Maureen and Anne, having had that history with them," the Mean Girls actress says. "There's a venting space, there's freedom there. All of our lives, experiencing a lot of the same things, I just feel really safe."

She also embraces this phase of life, with new business ventures and projects, for all its ups and downs.

"I have a full-time career and two kids," she says. "It's a lot of work, but I love it. My family is very supportive of it ... For sure it sounds like it's chaotic, and it is in some ways, but I've also found so much peace in where I live. Plus, my mom lives with me which helps."

For now, Seyfried is focused on appreciating her new business with her best friends: "I can't wait to grow this together as we're growing our kids."

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