Sounds like they're too far from the highway, too... I had a 100 year old maple tree on my property that was hit by lightning, and the highway department came out the next day, ground up the smaller bits, and left me a pile of wood chips and perfectly sawed up firewood, at no cost. Score!
It's probably best if you leave this one for the professionals. Your wife would be very upset if you broke your house. For trees that lean, I would ask the tree management companies to fell them, and you would go ahead and do the hard work of chopping them up and grinding them. You can rent a wood chipper for the majority of the cleanup. Assume you can use the wood, if not, cut it up and look on craigslist for the going rate of wood. Around here, it's about $200 a cord for green wood, $225 for wood 1 year seasoned.
Now, if you still want to give it a shot... Felling trees isn't hard. There are chainsaw techniques to use to direct the trees, which are limited. One method, you drive large spikes into the ground and tie lines to the tree to limit their fall. Another method is to climb the tree with leg spikes and drop portions of the tree until can be felled safely. Imagine a tree at the center of the clock; it leans to 3 o'clock and threatens your house. You tie lines at 9 and optionally at 3 and use a saw cut to drop it toward 6. With one rope at 9, the rope permits it to fall anywhere between 6 and 12. With two ropes, you can limit the fall to exactly 6 or 12, depending on your skill with cuts. Don't underestimate the weight of a tree; it is substantial.