G.M.
I have a couple of ideas: 1)If it's not too hard to get into Lawrence, you could try Sunfire Ceramics. My daughter painted her dad a coffee mug there for a birthday, and he really loves it. I didn't help at all except to hold it for her so she could paint toward the bottom. They are pretty reasonably priced....you see the price of the item your boys choose on the bottom, and these range from $3.00 up to huge platters & things that are way more expensive, but for a coffee mug it could be like 3-5, for something to hold golf tees or something, a similar price. Then you pay $4.00, which covers the price of all of the paint & equipment you use as well as firing & glazing. You'd probably want to get in today to be sure you had time to get it back. But it's fun & like I said, he loves it.
2) one year, when we had no cash & I couldn't think of anything, (when my daughter was 2), I found some old digital pictures of her and her dad doing things together & made a 'song book.' I'll say, she's always loved singing, so this worked for her & may not for others. But then I recorded her singing "you are my sunshine" and this little song we made up about her dad. Then on each page, there was a picture & some of the lyrics, and we used wrapping paper to 'bind' the book. Then I burned a CD of the video, so it was like a song book to accompany this CD, you know? Very sweet...we just pulled it out the other day, and it was even nice for me to see those pictures of them together.
Good luck!
G.