We have watched countless YouTube videos, read many books, websites and blogs to find out how to do Jewish things. If you have already looked into being Jewish and know this what you want, then the first step is to live like a Jew for a year. Do the holidays and learn the prayers. There is a lot of research to do about what kind of Jew you will be and how you will do the Jew. I will tell you about how we do the things we do and site the videos and books we used to learn how.

Shabbat is the most important ritual observance in Judaism. It is the only ritual observance instituted in the Ten Commandments. The main points for the non orthodox - Whatever you do for a living, you stop doing it at sundown on Friday and you don’t start again until after the sun goes down on Saturday. You don’t clean, you don’t cook, and you don't make or build anything. Don't spend money or drive (this is hard for newbies but you can work your way up to it).
You rest, you pray, you read, you study Torah, you eat, you sleep, you have sex with your spouse and, play with your children. You take leisurely walks or lazy naps Why Friday night til Saturday night. Because we star the new day at dark. So Saturday starts when it is dark on Friday night until Saturday at dark. Why? Because when making the world the Torah said
"there was evening and there was morning, one day"

For more on why and how check out this link.
http://www.jewfaq.org/shabbat.htm

More than the Jews keep the Sabbath, the Sabbath keeps the Jews.

New to Shabbat I will walk you thru it. The things you will need.

Challah bread- The word Challah is derived from the Hebrew word portion.
In the Biblical commandment "of the first of your dough you shall give unto the Lord a portion for a gift throughout your generations." Jews were biblically commanded to separate from their doughs one twenty‑fourth and give it to the kohanim (priests) every Sabbath.

In post-Temple times the rabbis ordained that a challah (portion), which had to be at least the size of an olive, must be separated from the dough and burned. It is still a tradition for Jewish bakers and observant housewives to tear a tiny lump of risen dough from any type of bread and to burn it (usually wrapped in foil) in the oven or fire while making a blessing.

Challah bread - We buy ours online because there isn't a baker to buy it from close to us. We buy from Kosher Bakers so the portion is already taken out and burned for us. Easy ! (also we don't bake bread which would be the other option)

The shipping is about $10 so we buy 4 loaves at once, vacuum seal them, and freeze them.
Do not vacuum them tight so the bread starts to lose shape. Just enough to get the air out. To unfreeze just put it out on the counter on Thursday night. I cut off the vacuum seal first before thawing.

http://lillysbakeryshop.com/

This link is for my favorite Steve's Mom

http://www.amazon.com/Zomicks-Large-Challah-4-Pack/dp/B004A9X2HU/ref=sr_1_7?m=A1VC43HB9D08JF&s=merchant-items&ie=UTF8&qid=1396739408&sr=1-7

Want to make it check out The Shiksa in the kitchen (as convert also)?

http://theshiksa.com/2010/08/26/challah-bread-part-2-how-to-braid-challah/

Some people use two challah loaves for shabbat.

The two Challah placed on the Shabbat table is called Lechem Mishneh (Double Bread or Extra Bread), because before Shabbat, Hashem brought down a double portion of mana (manna) for each person. (Shemot 16:4-5, 14-16) So they would not have to collect the manna on shabbat.

It is traditional to cover the loaves with a challah cover representing the mana that was covered above and below with dew from heaven.

My challah cover spells challah in hebrew.

Now we need shabbat candles. We have to have two. We use 5 candles. 2 Candles are the Shabbat candles. One for Remembrance and one for Observation The other 3 candles are used because we have 3 kids. (the requirement is two, but you can add others as you wish)

Shabbat is a holiday so we dress nice, put on the shabbat tablecloth, use the good china and have a nice holiday special feel to it. However you don't have to do so much. The book

The Modern Jewish Mom's Guide to Shabbat: Connect and Celebrate--Bring Your Family Together with the Friday Night Meal

You can see different and more relaxed ways to have shabbat.

We started with just this at first and built on each item each week.

To read how we started Shabbat

http://wheelerthree.blogspot.com/2013/10/keeping-shabbot.html

So for now we will start with these two items and the blessing over them.

First have the table set up and food ready to go. Then candles are lit at a time that changes so check the time for candle lighting. I use Chabad website http://www.chabad.org/calendar/candlelighting.htm

We printed out the blessing to use until we could do it from memory.