Entertainment

Ryan Reynolds Wished Blake Lively A Happy Birthday With This Never-Before-Seen Pregnancy Pic

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The internet hasn't seen much of the celebrity couple since they announced the incoming arrival of baby number three, but in an August 25 Instagram montage, Ryan Reynolds shared a Blake Lively pregnancy update and birthday message in one glorious post. It was the perfect, natural next move in the couple's hilarious social media trolling battle.

The two announced Lively's pregnancy and she debuted her growing baby bump at the premiere of Reynolds' latest feature film, Detective Pikachu. On May 11, Lively shared a photo of herself from the event wearing an on-theme yellow dress. "PokeMOM.... Out now," she captioned the photo.

Over three months later, in celebration of her 32nd birthday, it was Reynolds' turn to garner the laughs. He shared a fully stocked Instagram gallery — 10 photos — of Lively, in all of which she's either caught in the middle of a funny face, out of focus, or not looking at the camera at all. You know, the kind of pictures most people would delete after taking. But Reynolds saved them for a very particular reason.

The first of the ten photos is quite cute — Lively is looking up at Reynolds in laughter while holding her pregnant belly. But then, as you scroll through the carousel, the photos become progressively... less glamorous. She's completely cut out of one of them (wouldn't be the first time her husband cropped her out), and in another, she's sitting on what looks like a luggage cart with her eyes closed, holding a mermaid Barbie doll, as one does.

Fans who follow the pair closely shouldn't be at all surprised by Reynolds' birthday post. In 2017, he began the trend by posting a photo of them from the 2014 Met Gala with Lively's face almost entirely cropped out. "Happy Birthday to my amazing wife," he wrote. She later retaliated with a similar cropping technique on a photo of Reynolds with actor Ryan Gosling. "Happy Birthday, baby," she wrote.

Reynolds actually must have some real guts to troll his wife this time around, considering she just gifted him "the greatest present" she's ever given him earlier this month: a painting of his childhood home. Then again, he trolled her in that update, too. "The house no longer stands but it’s a living, breathing thing in my head. This piece of art is the greatest present my wife has ever given me," he wrote. "If there’s ever a fire, I’m grabbing this first. I’ll come back for Blake."

According to an interview he did on the Sunday Sitdown with Willie Geist podcast, he said their silly banter is part of their love language. "We're people that don't take ourselves too seriously," he said. "The only people I really love to make fun of is us."

The two have also repeatedly poked fun at each other in the comments sections of their Instagram posts. Lively has yet to respond to Reynolds' most recent birthday shout out, but when she does, it will have been worth the wait.