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Keep an eye on Rise of the Runelords threads for all kinds of specific ideas and advice for scaling the adventures.
It has been my experience that a smaller group of characters is able to confront challenges only a little lower than normal. If you made use of the gestalt option the group would have more versatility to confront various challenges.
I would add a party NPC. Nothing too powerful, but just something there that you can use in game to rebalance an encounter if things get a little too off kilter. Probably keep the party 2 levels above the challenge levels. Gestalt can help but just keep in mind that the economy of action still applies.
Another thing to consider is if the players might want to play more than one character, perhaps a primary character and their sidekick/cohort (same level though).
If you have any long-distance friends, you could have one or two of them join you over Skype. I'm running Runelords with two long-distance players and a third who plays over Skype but lives 20 minutes from me.
My suggestion is that if no one is playing a thief, run an GMPC thief and at 2nd level take the Rogue Trait to auto-detect traps that are 10 feet away. Multi-class with Cleric if they don't have a cleric.