(CNN) -- They grow up so fast.
Google celebrated its 12 years Monday with a birthday cake doodle created by Wayne Thiebaud, an American artist famous for his paintings of cakes and pastries.
"Our thanks to Wayne Thiebaud for helping us celebrate our 12th bday with a lovely doodle!" Google tweeted.
It's not clear why Google chooses to celebrate its birthday on September 27 instead of other noteworthy days in its history. Google filed for incorporation in California on September 4, 1998. Co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin set up in a Silicon Valley garage and hired their first employee, fellow Stanford grad Craig Silverstein, on September 21 of that year.
Since then, Google has grown rapidly from a search engine into a tech giant that offers a variety of web-based services, from e-mail to calendars to internet phone calling to TV. An increasing number of smartphones run its popular Android operating system.
Google embarks on its last year as a pre-teen by having recently introduced Google Instant, which offers suggested results to users as they type.
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