Sowing seeds

I'm jumping in feet first to gardening this year. I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing, but I'm giving it a good try. I started out a few weeks ago by checking out several books from the library on gardening and particularly, gardening in NJ. I researched who I should purchase the my seeds from and finally decided on Hudson Valley Seed Library. My seeds arrived yesterday so the girls and I took a trip to Lowe's today to get the rest of the supplies. I decided to play it safe and bought a seed starting kit because again...I don't really know what I'm doing. The little babies are sitting on my kitchen counter right now with a heating pad underneath them and a lamp overhead to provide them with adequate heat. I hope this experiment works.