Hang in the balance

finding balance in life is hard to do, not to mention time consuming. i blogged about my awesome new schedule and part of the reason i like having life so scheduled is to keep it balanced. I have NO balance. after 13 years of dance classes and recitals and HUNDREDS of dollars spent by my parents i tripped over thin air and broke my leg (sadly that is a true story not just a metaphor).

My whole life has been spent trying to discover balance.

The balance i am struggling with is currently (ok one of many balance issues in life) nutrition. I am using the word nutrition and not diet because of the negative conotation behind the word diet. i am working on eating healthy and balancing the food groups, as well as getting my family to eat healthy and balanced. i have NO desire to cut sugar and chocolate and cheese sauce and pasta out of my life completely. i just would like to not eat them EVERY day and maybe just consume one serving not 4 at a time. Now for me i am doing okay at this, not great, not horrible just ok. i am working on improving and that's enough of a goal for now.

Kel is doing well, better than me but still room to improve. Since i cook the meals i have started cooking with less to no oils. i use as little processed food as possible and we are all SOY FREE around here (due to Cecelia's allergies). We have had 1 meal not made at home within the past 2 weeks (huge for use, we used to grab fast food as much as we could). Our food budget went form $100 a week to $30 a week. It's amazing and i actually am feeling good about my cooking abilities as well as the lifestyle change that has occured for our family.

i still have one very hard critic i can't seem to impress....

and the worst part is that there are no short cuts because of her allergies.

Cecelia doesn't like most veggies. in fact i can count on one hand how many veggies she will voluntarily eat. And this little girl eats ALL DAY LONG! she is such a bottomless pit. She also is picky about what foods she eats and when. For example she will only eat apples when we are out and about, if i give them to her at home she throws the AT ME! She cna't have ANYTHING with soy, soy lecthin, soybean oil, soybean extract or vegetable oil. that means nothing premade or packaged except fruit snacks. She also can't have egg white OR egg yolks (more people are allergic to one or the other, not both), peanuts, peas, veggies processed in a facility that processes peas, chickpeas or tree nuts.  overall cooking soy free/cecelia allergy free is easy. Zthe hard part is when we go out somewhere. i have to have natural yummy snacks she will eat that aren't messy and can handle being room tempurature, and ht eback ups for when she refuses to eat those. It's exhausting.

The worst part is, she is only like this for me. If i offer her an apple slice she will take it and throw is, if ANYONE ELSE ON EARTH offers her an apple slice she will eat it and smile at them. Kel thinks i am a liar about her food aversions. I'm not making this up. if he feeds her she waits until he looks away to dump it on the floor.

So i am resorting to hiding veggies in food to try to get my family to eat balances. Today i made squash muffins (sound gross i know). They taste SO good. I used half the recommended sugar and replaced it with spices and flavor. and they are made with whole wheat flour instead of white flour.
I also made pumpkin cornbread muffins... also delicious. Thanks to my sister's mini muffin tins i made them small and less messy for the little one. this way she can eat multiple throughout the day and munch on them without wasting half of the muffin. I will be buying my own set THIS WEEKEND!

My final issue with Cecelia's balanced nutrition is variety. She loves noodles and mac and cheese and one box of mac and cheese feeds her for 5 days. This means for 5 days that is all she gets for lunch. Her ususally daily diet looks like this...

Breakfast: blueberries + banana, applesauce and muffin
lunch: mac and cheese+ chicken or hot dog + sweet potatoe
dinner: eating off my plate (uncool babay girl, uncool) no matter what is on her plate
Snacks: string cheese, yogurt balls, homemade bread, fruit snacks, cheese cubes and apple slices

That is it, honestly i wish i was exagerating when i say she is confined to that list. i feel like a horrible mother by not branching out, but i don't know how to. We throw in whatever fruits are in season as much as we can. Veggies HAVE to be fresh because processed ones are non allergy safe.

 I need some ideas. I am desperate for easy, not too messy homemade recipes that are cheap, yummy and healthy. She refuses to let me feed her at all so it need to be finger foods. the hardest part, ALL Cecelia ALLERGY FREE.

HELP! 

 ANY RECIPE, IDEA, CONCEPT, SUGGESTION OR FUNNY JOKE WILL BE APPRECIATED. I AM ONE DESPERATE MOMMA TO BREAK UP THE MONOTONY OF HER DIET AND HELP HER LEARN TO LIKE FOOD MORE THAN BLUEBERRIES AND CHEESE.