Building a sandpit

My husband and I struggled to think of what to get our 2 year old son for Christmas. He already has plenty of toys and will no doubt get spoilt by grandparents and other family members this Christmas, plus it was hard to tell what he really wanted. We had noticed that he wanted to play in a patch of dirt in our garden, so that gave us the idea of building him a sandpit as his Christmas present.
He had a patch of garden that we were intending to rip out anyway one day in the future when we rebuild our patio/pergola area. I started ripping out the plants last week, and my husband finished digging them out yesterday.


Then he removed the soil. The previous owners of this house had a sandpit where our shed now stands. For some reason, we decided to keep the sandpit sand and my husband has kept it covered up. He originally intended to use that sand to lay pavers where my washing line is. It turns out there was enough sandpit sand to fill the sandpit, and have some left over for topping up at a later date.


Needless to say, my son loves his sandpit, even though Christmas is still a few days away. We had trouble getting him out of it last night and a few tears were shed when he wanted to return to his sandpit after his bath just as we were about to have dinner. I expect that he will get a lot of use out of it.


It will be a few years before we redo our patio, so in the meantime he can enjoy his undercover sandpit. It's in a great spot; I can keep an eye on him and he is shaded from the sun.
We put a few of his old plastic toys that he doesn't play with much anymore, plus some sandpit toys that he was given from friends, and a few empty plastic containers. Plus, Santa might bring him something. Otherwise you don't need to buy sandpit toys, they are quite happy with any kitchen utensils or plastic containers that you can spare.