I'm going to raise chickens!

It started as planning for Easter baskets.  I was trying to think of what I could put in the kids' baskets.  I thought about how much fun a real bunny would be, but I can't keep it in the house with Abby and I don't want to keep it in a hutch outside.  I got ducklings one year and my mom got a chick...a chick!  I could get chicks and keep THEM outside....and then I started doing some research online and my hairbrained idea took flight (unlike the chickens I'm going to raise will be able to do!)
I know this is just a crazy idea, but I'm going to indulge for awhile.  I'm going to research, and price and try to think, realistically, is this something that I can and really WANT to do.  The start-up cost is kind of steep.  While the chicks are mostly only a few dollars each, the chicken coop is a few hundred.  I have my fenced yard, but that doesn't really protect the birds for hawks and other predators (those !#$%& skunks can get in so other predators might be able to also!).  It will allow us to let them out to roam a little though.  I also know that I want a moveable coop  because I want to birds to be able to have full access to the yard, or rather eat bugs from the whole yard.  That's one of the great things about keeping chickens--pest control.  Another reason I want to raise chickens is also the biggest reason I'm hesitant to raise chickens---poop.  Chicken manure is an AWESOME organic fertlizer for my garden!  It also smells really bad and it's poop-therefor gross.  There's also the obvious, eggs.  From what I read, homegrown eggs are WAY better to store bough, both in nutritional value and taste.  The one thing that I kept finding over and over again in my research (I really like the site backyardchickens.com) was what great pets chickens make.  I hadn't really thought of them as pets, but chicken owner after chicken owner said how personalable and even cuddly some breeds can be.  There's a forum for posting your top 3 reasons for owning chickens and lots of people said they're so entertaining that they could watch them for hours.  While I don't really see myself absorbed in the antics of my pet chickens, if it gets the kids outside more, I'm all for that! 
I'm continuing to do some more research.  I need to figure out how productive I want my chickens to be, how ornamental I want them to be, their temperment so they'll be willing to interact with the kids,  and most importantly, how to house the to keep them safe.