"I'm so thankful I have the opportunity to be home with them," the actress said.
Eva Mendes gave a rare peek into her family life on Friday.
The actress, 45, revealed the trials and tribulations of raising daughters Esmeralda, 5, and Amada, 3, with longtime partner Ryan Gosling, 38, during an interview with Access Daily.
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View Story"It's so fun and beautiful and maddening. It's so hard, of course,' the "Hitch" star began.
"But it's like that feeling of... you end your day, you put them to bed and Ryan and I kind of look at each other like, 'We did it, we did it. We came out relatively unscathed,'" she continued.
Mendes took a hiatus from acting to care for her daughters. Her last film credit was in 2014 for "Lost River," which Gosling directed.
"I'm so thankful I have the opportunity to be home with them,' she explained. And that chance allows Mendes to bond with her family over such simple pleasures as tending a garden.
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View Story"I'm a city girl but I just decided, 'Wouldn't it be great to start gardening and go pick the fruit from the garden?' So we did strawberries, cucumbers, tomatoes... the girls went out to the garden every day and watered it. We were so excited," she explained.
When asked if Esmeralda or Amada would be following in their parents footsteps with the "acting bug", the Miami native quipped "Right now, they have every bug."
"They just like a lot of arts and crafts, a lot of painting," she said. "We have instruments around. They pick them up, and we can't say they actually play anything, but it's just a playful environment."
As for "date nights" between the parents, who have been together since 2011, Mendes is thankful for having relatives around to help look after the girls.
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View Story"You got to make sure you have everything all lined up. Luckily we have a lot of family support. A lot of family. My family lives here. His family comes in. They live in Canada, but they come in all the time and stay for a very long time, and it's very welcomed. And so we have that support."
And when questioned if she will be returning to the silver screen anytime soon, Mendes could not give a definitive answer, only offering that she would love to work with her beau again soon.
"He's just such a creative genius. There's always stuff going on there, but I would love to at any time," she gushed.