Ryan Reynolds marked Blake Lively’s 39th birthday with photographs that usually stay outside the couple’s public feed, candid moments of Lively carrying, hugging and playing with their children.
Reynolds shared the carousel on Aug. 26, one day after Lively’s birthday. “August 25th is this family’s Super Bowl,” he wrote before calling his wife “the very best human I know,” Entertainment Weekly reported.
His caption mixed affection with one of his familiar jokes. Reynolds called Lively a “courageous and deeply kind genius” and “unreasonably cute,” then wrote that whenever he hits his head, it is her life that flashes before his eyes.
Lively appears with the children in several images, while Reynolds continued the couple’s practice of keeping their faces out of view.
One Photo Appears to Come From a Deadpool Set
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Among the family snapshots is a superhero moment that appears to have been taken on a Deadpool set. PEOPLE described Lively lying on Reynolds’ lap while he had part of his costume on and one of their daughters played nearby with a stick.
E! News noted that the child was dressed in pink superhero clothing and appeared to pretend-fight both parents. Other photographs show Lively hugging one of the children and giving another a ride on her shoulders.
Reynolds did not identify which child appeared in each photograph. He and Lively are parents to daughters James, Inez and Betty and son Olin.
The Children Appear, but Their Faces Stay Out of View
Even while sharing more family photographs than usual, Reynolds maintained a familiar boundary. E! reported that the children’s faces were either cropped out of the images or covered with emojis.
Lively has previously explained why she and Reynolds try to keep their children outside the spotlight. “My husband and I chose a profession and a side effect of that is your personal life is public,” she told Marie Claire U.K. in 2016. Their child, she said, had not been given the same choice.
“So in order to give her as much normality as possible, we want her to have a childhood like we had,” Lively said. The couple has largely maintained that approach while occasionally sharing photographs that reveal parts of family life without fully putting the children on display.
Lively Shared Her Own Family Album Earlier in August
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Reynolds’ birthday carousel came less than three weeks after Lively shared another unusual collection of family photographs. On Aug. 7, she posted images from Wrexham AFC’s July 29 preseason match against Liverpool at Yankee Stadium in New York.
The PEOPLE report on the carousel said the photographs included Lively, Reynolds, their children and close friends enjoying the match. Reynolds has co-owned Wrexham since 2020.
Lively described seeing Wrexham play Liverpool at Yankee Stadium as “one of the most surreal moments of this wild and beautiful ride” and thanked the friends, family and Wrexham supporters who attended. She also thanked longtime friend and photographer Guy Aroch for bringing his camera and documenting the day, writing that there was “no better gift than having great memories with your loved ones captured.”