Host/Service checks

Hello,
I am pretty new to nagios, and i have encounter a few probs on the way:

For example:
Is there a way in which: If the host is down, for the system not to check the services on that host?
Ex: host A is checked and the ping times out (the host is down)
Host A has 3 services - dhcp/dns/apache
If host A is don those 3 services will be ignored till the host is up again (it is ANNOYING to see the entire screen RED when actually only the firewall is active for example)

Actualy nagios does not check services on host that is in DOWN state. Although services if shown as CRITICAL that does not generate notification.