Need help keeping your family organized? Allow the Doughertys, a family of 14, to offer some advice.
Alicia Dougherty—who shares 12 kids, lovingly referred to as the "Dougherty Dozen," with her husband Josh Dougherty—recently gave fans a tour of the family's garage on TikTok and explained how they keep everything so tidy.
"One issue we have as a large family is a lack of storage," she said in the Oct. 12 video. "So we decided to utilize the garage with extra shelves for food, four extra fridge freezers, a shelf for bottled water, a shelf for sodas, a hang-up system for bikes and room for all their Power Wheels."
But that's not all. "We recently got 12 lockers so that each kid has their own space to keep their coats, jackets, backpacks and all of their shoes," the content creator continued. "And that's how we help keep our house organized with 12 kids."
And fans of the video—which has already racked up more than 836,000 views—were blown away. "The lockers are such a great idea," one commenter wrote. Added another, "The organization is impressive."
Alicia's garage organization is just the latest look into her life with a big family. She uses the Dougherty Dozen's TikTok, which has 5.1 million followers, to share everything from grocery trips and family meals to back-to-school hauls and tours of their 15-seater van. And for those wondering how the Dougherty Dozen came to be, Alicia has shared their story, too.
As Alicia noted in an August YouTube video, she and Josh experienced fertility struggles for nine years and decided to adopt a child from foster care. They adopted Alex, now 16, when he was 5 years old in 2011. Less than a week later, the vlogger continued, Alicia learned she was pregnant with Zoey, 10. The following year, she added, she and Josh adopted James, 15, from foster care and they found out she was pregnant with Dash, 8, two weeks later.
Their family continued to grow. As Alicia recounted in an August Instagram post, when Dash was 1-year-old, she and Josh were asked to take foster care placement of now 7-year-old twins Jason and Jordan, whom they later adopted. She also gave birth to Bodhi, 6, in 2016 and Harlee, 4, in 2018. When Harlee was a baby, Alicia and Josh learned about a sibling group in a residential treatment facility in need of a family and adopted Patrick, 14, and Bree, 11. And this past spring, Alicia added, the couple took kinship placement of Dayshawn, 12, and Nevaeh, 14.
"We pride ourselves on being genuine and authentic and REAL," Alicia wrote in her post. "Life is Messy. And we're all just Trying Our Best."