I want to start my second character soon and I am planning on a stealth approach so I can do the DB and Thieves guild quest lines. I was hoping you guys might share some of your opinions/experiences on the stealth races in this game.

All races can be stealth races. My orc is stealthy as sh*t

Races don't matter, so just pick one you like the look of, mostly it's just cosmetic differences especially beyond the first few levels.

I'm playing a Nord stealth archer which is great

I went Imperial for my stealth character. Im at 75 stealth without the stealth upgrades from the DBH equipment and guards almost run into me without being detected. When you're first starting out, exploring and such, sneak in every ruin and such. Unless you want to use the age old sneak exploit. I did my character as a ranged stealth so Iv invested most of my points into Archery and sneak. Im not really concerned with light armor since I can get out of most situations without being seen. I also played around with Conjuration magic, still working the kinks out in that plan but its worked a few times.

Woodelf is cool I love the disease and poison resist, I'm level 26 and I think I've only contracted like 2 diseases total.

They also start with better archery, which imo no stealth character should neglect.

Command animal is kinda fun but situational at best, I mostly use it to basically passify tough targets like snow bears, sabres and frost trolls so I can get a few free hits on em,
it's very rare that you ever use it to actually command an animal to help you fight something else.