What's in your lunch box?

This back to school thing has be obsessing over what I'm putting in my kid's lunch boxes. I did pack lunch for my preschooler last year, but I'm trying to spice it up a little this year making lunches that are healthier and hopefully more fun. At home we eat A LOT of peanut butter, but since our school (and most these days) is nut free, it becomes a little bit more challenging to find healthy foods that are easy to pack and that my children will actually eat.

The Simple As That blog has some fabulous ideas for school lunches

Smart School House has some good ideas for lunches including some easy substitutions to make meals all kids love just a little bit healthier

I have also found tons of inspiration from 100 days of real food like this delicious looking heart-shaped pancake sandwich... yum!

So now that I've found some inspiration for what food to prepare, what about all the stuff? There are so many containers, boxes, bags, ice packs, vegetable cutters, you name it out there right now. How do I pick which ones I need? Do I really need the fancy container? What about the cut out shapes? Can't I just raid the cookie cutters I already have rather than buy special ones? So what if my kid comes to school with a sandwich shaped like a gingerbread man all year, right?

I decided to go with the ziplock 3-compartment divided containers. I found these at Target in a pack of 2 for $5 so if it doesn't work out, no big loss. So far I have used the cookie cutters I already have which do include one large heart and many assorted sizes of stars. I may be inspired to branch out to other shapes as the year progresses. I have noticed that my 3-year-old who usually takes one bite of a sandwich and announces that she is done, will amazingly eat every bit of a sandwich if I cut it into a heart. Who knew? 

So now what I'd really like to know is, do you veteran school lunch makers have any words of wisdom for me? Great ideas for lunch?  Products you just can't live without?